Timber Hearth

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Lore & Background

Timber Hearth is the homeworld of the Hearthians, a four-eyed species that resemble aquatic animals with legs. The planet serves as the starting point for the player character, an unnamed Hearthian space explorer referred to as the Hatchling, who is preparing for their first space flight as part of Outer Wilds Ventures. Prior to departure, a Nomai statue in a museum on Timber Hearth activates and turns towards the Hatchling, inducting them into a time loop. The planet's trees provide a supply of oxygen, which refills the Hatchling's spacesuit when they are near them. Other Hearthians on Timber Hearth can be communicated with in text-based dialogue trees. The planet is also home to the museum that contains the Nomai statue and, in the Echoes of the Eye expansion, an exhibit showing off the deep space satellite used to generate the player's system map.

In Their Own Story

The Hatchling begins their journey on Timber Hearth, preparing for their first space flight. Before departure, they visit the museum, where a Nomai statue activates and turns towards them. This event marks the beginning of the time loop, which resets after 22 minutes when the sun goes supernova. Throughout the game, the Hatchling can return to Timber Hearth to refill their oxygen supply near trees and communicate with other Hearthians. The planet's unique musical identity is established by a Hearthian playing a song on a unique instrument, which can be heard from anywhere in the solar system using the signalscope. Timber Hearth is also the location of the museum that, in the Echoes of the Eye expansion, contains an exhibit about the deep space satellite that reveals the existence of a hidden object eclipsing the star.

Reader's Guide

Timber Hearth is a forested Earth-like planet that serves as the homeworld of the Hearthian species and the starting point for the player's journey. The planet is characterized by its earthy browns and greens, evoking a campsite in the woods. It is one of several celestial bodies in a small planetary system that also includes the Hourglass Twins, Brittle Hollow, Giant's Deep, and Dark Bramble. Timber Hearth is orbited by the Attlerock, a small rocky moon. The planet's trees provide a supply of oxygen, which refills the Hatchling's spacesuit when they are near them. Other Hearthians on Timber Hearth can be communicated with in text-based dialogue trees. The planet is also home to the museum that contains the Nomai statue and, in the Echoes of the Eye expansion, an exhibit showing off the deep space satellite used to generate the player's system map. The Hatchling can also listen to the unique song played by a Hearthian on Timber Hearth from anywhere in the solar system using the signalscope.

Did You Know?

• Timber Hearth is the homeworld of the four-eyed Hearthian species, which resemble aquatic animals with legs.
• A member of the Outer Wilds space exploration program on Timber Hearth plays a unique song on a unique instrument, which can be listened to from anywhere in the solar system with the signalscope.
• Timber Hearth is orbited by the Attlerock, a small rocky moon.
• The planet's trees provide a supply of oxygen, which refills the Hatchling's spacesuit when they are near them.
• The museum on Timber Hearth contains a Nomai statue that activates and turns towards the Hatchling prior to their first space flight, inducting them into the time loop.

Timber Hearth as the Hearthian Homeworld

Timber Hearth is the homeworld of the four-eyed Hearthian species, which resemble aquatic animals with legs. The planet serves as the starting point for the player character, an unnamed Hearthian space explorer referred to as the Hatchling, who is preparing for their first space flight as part of Outer Wilds Ventures. The planet has a distinct visual identity, resembling a campsite in the woods with browns and greens, and a distinct auditory identity, with a member of the Outer Wilds space exploration program playing a unique song on a unique instrument, which can be listened to from anywhere in the solar system with the signalscope. Timber Hearth is orbited by the Attlerock, a small rocky moon. The planet's trees provide a supply of oxygen, which refills the Hatchling's spacesuit when they are near them. Other Hearthians on Timber Hearth can be communicated with in text-based dialogue trees. The planet is also home to the museum that contains the Nomai statue that activates and turns towards the Hatchling prior to their first space flight, inducting them into the time loop. In the Echoes of the Eye expansion, the museum also contains an exhibit showing off the deep space satellite used to generate the player's system map.

The Mechanics of Exploration and Physics

The Hatchling moves around the game space by walking and jumping; if they are wearing their spacesuit they may also use its jetpack to propel themselves upwards. The spacesuit has a limited supply of fuel, which can be refilled at specific locations, and a limited supply of oxygen, which is refilled when the Hatchling is near trees on Timber Hearth. If the Hatchling runs out of fuel, they can use oxygen as a propellant. Running out of oxygen, hitting an object or surface too hard, or being crushed will injure the Hatchling or damage their suit, killing them if too much injury is sustained. While wearing the spacesuit, an interface showing the remaining fuel and oxygen is shown. Damage to the Hatchling is shown by their suit icon turning red, with no explicit health amount given. The Hatchling also has a signalscope, which can be used to scan for the source of audio transmissions, such as the unique song played by a Hearthian on Timber Hearth. The Hatchling can also freely fly a small spacecraft throughout the planetary system. The spacecraft and the celestial bodies of the system follow an exaggerated system of Newtonian physics, causing the planets and other bodies to swiftly orbit the sun and exert their own variable gravity fields, and requiring the player to counteract their own momentum to slow down while flying. Collisions can damage parts of the spacecraft and make them inoperable; too much damage can destroy it and kill the Hatchling, but can otherwise be repaired by exiting the spacecraft and interacting with the damaged component. Both the spacecraft and the spacesuit can launch a small probe to light up an area or take pictures. The player character can only carry a single object at a time. Nothing is brought back with the Hatchling when the time loop resets, with the exception of the data on the spacecraft's computer, which displays the information and mysteries that the player has found so far, organized either by location or in a web of connections. Locations evolve throughout the duration of the time loop, such as parts of a planet collapsing or sand flowing from one area to another, making some areas only accessible from specific points in the time loop.

The Nomai Legacy and Temporal Mystery

The Nomai are an alien species that has left ruins scattered throughout the planetary system, including on Timber Hearth. The Nomai are a three-eyed, fur-covered, antlered species that wear robes and large masks. The player uses a translator tool to read Nomai writing, found in their ruins and presented as a branching tree of messages. The central mystery of the game involves discovering why the star is exploding and the cause of the 22-minute time loop. Through repeated time loops, the player explores the planetary system and the ruins that the Nomai left behind. From their writings, the Nomai were a nomadic species that explored the universe in large spaceships called Vessels; one Vessel discovered a signal older than the universe emanating from the Hatchling's star system. Upon warping to the system, the Vessel became embedded in Dark Bramble, with some of the Nomai surviving in escape pods. No longer able to detect the signal, the Nomai built a civilization throughout the system while trying to find the source, dubbed the 'Eye of the Universe'. They eventually discover that, with enough power, they can send objects or information backwards in time using a linked pair of black and white holes. This inspires them to build a probe cannon in orbit around Giant's Deep to fire a probe in a random direction to locate the Eye, and a station in orbit around the star, the Sun Station, that would artificially induce a supernova, generating enough power to send the probe's data back in time 22 minutes. However, the Sun Station failed to induce a supernova and before an alternate power source could be found, the Interloper entered the solar system. The Nomai investigating found that the Interloper contained an extremely pressurized source of 'ghost matter', a highly lethal and invisible substance. Before they could inform the others, the source ruptured and a powerful wave of ghost matter spread throughout the system, killing all of the Nomai. A long time later, after the animals of Timber Hearth evolved into the Hearthians, the sun goes supernova as part of the natural end of the universe, triggering the time loop repeatedly until the probe cannon finds the Eye at the beginning of the game and through the statue inducts the Hatchling into the loop.

Development Origins and Critical Acclaim

Outer Wilds is a 2019 action-adventure game developed by Mobius Digital and published by Annapurna Interactive. The game began development in 2012 as director Alex Beachum's master's thesis. He was inspired to create a game focused on exploration in which the player character was not the center of the game world. Beachum led a small team in building the game, first as an independent project, then as a commercial game at Mobius after the project won the Excellence in Design and Seumas McNally Grand Prize awards at the 2015 Independent Games Festival. Annapurna joined the project as the publisher in 2015 and funded its expansion beyond a student project. Outer Wilds was released for Windows, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 in 2019, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2022, and for Nintendo Switch in 2023. An expansion which explores further themes in a new location in the planetary system, Echoes of the Eye, was begun in 2019 and released for the same platforms in 2021. Outer Wilds was positively received upon release, with most critics acclaiming its design and some criticizing the uneven difficulty of gameplay and pursuing the game's mysteries. Echoes of the Eye was also positively received, with some criticism for its introduction of horror elements. Outer Wilds was featured in several game of the year lists for 2019 as well as game of the decade and game of the era lists, won in multiple categories at award shows, including the Best Game award at the 16th British Academy Games Awards, and is regarded as one of the greatest video games ever made.